ReSharper 6.1 EAP Opens: Much More than a Bugfix Release

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It took longer than expected but here we are, opening the ReSharper 6.1 Early Access Program that’s meant to eliminate any pain points you might be having with ReSharper 6.0, via performance and bug fixes. However, ReSharper 6.1 also provides a lot of new functionality that all 6.0 users will be getting as a free upgrade.

UPDATE! ReSharper 6.1 is officially released, Early Access Program is over.

Here are some of the best reasons why you should totally try ReSharper 6.1:

• Performance fixes: Has ReSharper 6.0 been harsh on you performance-wise? Has it been processing source files longer than expected? 6.1 shouldn’t. Here’s the list of performance issues that have been fixed.
• Bug fixes. The list of bugs fixed for 6.1 is here for you, highlighted by massive efforts to improve unit testing, structural search and replace, VB.NET code resolve, as well as code completion and typing assistance in ASP.NET MVC 3 (Razor).
• New settings engine. Settings have been revamped extensively, with extra emphasis on sharing and managing them. We have made many more settings accessible and sharable, and introduced new granular settings — for example, those for IntelliSense behavior for different languages. Settings are now layered meaning that you can define global, per-solution, per-team or individual settings. You can now export and import all or selected settings to/from a single file — for this and other settings management operations, use the new Manage button under ReSharper > Options.


Here’s a rough list of settings-related problems solved for 6.1. Mind you, nothing is set in stone yet. We’re still making changes to this subsystem, and we’ll do that based on feedback from you and your team.

• Support for Async CTP. You have asked for it: Not only does ReSharper 6.1 support async and await keywords — both in C# and VB.NET — but it also provides a set of code inspections and quick-fixes: for example, it sees dead code when an asynchronous method lacks await operators, and warns when you’re using a wrong return type in an asynchronous method.
  
• Optimize Assembly References. This has been requested for even longer, and here it is: ReSharper 6.1 detects any references that are not effectively used in your project, and provides a nicely built UI to get rid of all or some of them. Project maintenance just got easier with ReSharper!
  
• Experimental support for the initial Visual Studio 11 Developer Preview. We have adapted ReSharper to run under Dev11, and it does so fairly well with existing code. Manual setup is required here, and we’ll follow up with a post containing VS11 install guidelines. However, please understand that this is only initial, experimental support for existing types of projects with a specific Developer Preview build (the one made available on September 16, 2011.) We can’t guarantee any consistency of your experience with ReSharper 6.1 EAP (or even the future release of 6.1) under VS11 Developer Preview. Needless to say, no support for developing Metro style applications is there. Official support for VS11 will not be made available any earlier than the next major ReSharper release.
• ReSharper SDK. This is something that should simplify ReSharper plug-in development dramatically. Delivered as an MSI or ZIP file, the SDK provides a full set of ReSharper assemblies, including test infrastructure assemblies required to test ReSharper plug-ins, target files, and (in the MSI version) Visual Studio templates for creating different kinds of plug-in projects.
  
• A great load of improvements relevant to web developers. This includes new quick-fixes and refactorings for CSS; Structural Search and Replace for HTML and ASP.NET; Move Helper refactoring, internationalization and Call Tracking for ASP.NET MVC 3; generation of event subscriptions in ASP.NET; a UI to configure path mappings for web site deployment; and many more improvements, some major, others not so much, that we’ll be expanding upon in a separate blog post.
• New code inspections and quick-fixes for C# and VB.NET. Aside from the set of Async CTP related inspections, ReSharper 6.1 has also improved in terms of control flow redundancy analysis (for instance, detecting more cases of redundant return statements); it also detects access to disposed closure and covariant array conversions, and provides corresponding quick-fixes where available.
  
• XAML support improvements including code completion enhanced in certain scenarios, batch generation of event subscriptions, improved attached property awareness in error highlighting and code completion, as well as an option to create a namespace alias from usage:
  

We have also added a new refactoring to convert iterators to methods; internationalization for VB.NET projects; navigation and search updates including Quick Search in Type Hierarchy window, export to HTML and XML from all tool windows supporting import/export functionality; and more. There are simply too much changes, subtle and prominent, to summarize in a single blog post without turning it into an encyclopedia.

For die-hard fans, here’s the list of all YouTrack issues fixed for 6.1.

Go forward and download ReSharper 6.1 EAP builds ReSharper 6.1 official release, and expect more blog posts covering 6.1 functionality in greater detail to come up soon.

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